The Keeper of Lost Things(63)
“We’re sorry,” said Laura.
Freddy nodded, for once without a trace of a smile on his face.
“We’re sorry if you’ve tried to talk to us and we haven’t listened.”
“Yes,” said Freddy, “and if we do it again, just bash us.”
Sunshine thought about it for a moment and then clipped him round the ear, just for good measure. Then, serious again, she addressed them both.
“It’s not the ring. It’s the letter.”
“Which letter?” said Freddy.
“St. Anthony’s dead letter,” she replied. “Come on,” she said.
They followed her from the kitchen into the garden room, where she picked up the Al Bowlly record and placed it on the turntable.
“It’s the letter,” she said again, and with that she set the needle down onto the disk and the music began to play.
CHAPTER 40
Eunice
2005
“The thought of you publishing that . . .”—Eunice consulted her inner omnibus of obscenities and finding nothing suitably disparaging expostulated her final word like a poisonous blow dart—“thing!”
The hardback floozy of a book, with its trashy red-and-gold cover, languished half undressed in its brown paper wrappings alongside a bottle of champagne that Bruce had sent with it, according to the card, “as some consolation for not having the wit to publish it yourself.” Bomber shook his head in bewildered disbelief.
“I haven’t even read it. Have you?”
Portia’s latest book had topped the bestseller lists for the past three weeks, and Bruce and his swaggering peacockery knew no restraint. His self-importance was index-linked to his bank balance, which, thanks to Portia, now warranted a platinum credit card and first-name terms with the branch manager.
“Of course I’ve read it!” Eunice exclaimed. “I had to in order to slander it from an informed perspective. I’ve also read all the reviews. You do realize that your sister’s book is being hailed as ‘a searing satire on the saccharine clichés of contemporary commercial fiction’? One critic called it ‘a razor-sharp deconstruction of the sexual balance of power in modern relationships, pushing the boundaries of popular literature to exhilarating extremes and giving the finger to those luminaries of the literary establishment who habitually kowtow to the conventions of Man Booker and its staid stablemates.’”
Despite her fury, Eunice couldn’t keep a straight face, and Bomber was in stitches. He eventually composed himself sufficiently to ask:
“But what’s it about?”
Eunice sighed. “Do you really want to know? It’s so much worse than anything else she’s ever done.”
“I think I can cope.”
“Well, as you are already painfully aware, it goes by the intriguing title of Harriet Hotter and the Gobstopper Phone.”
Eunice paused for effect.
“Harriet, orphaned at an early age and raised by a dreadful aunt and a clinically obese and very sweaty uncle, vows to leave their home as soon as she can and make her own way in the world. After her A levels, she gets a job in a pizza and kebab shop, ‘Pizzbab,’ near King’s Cross, where she is constantly mocked for her posh voice and her bifocal spectacles. One day, an old man with a very long beard and a funny hat comes into the shop to buy a kebab and chips, and tells her that she is ‘very special.’ He hands her a business card and tells her to call him. Fast-forward six months and Harriet is earning a small fortune from phone sex. Her customers love her because she has a posh voice ‘as though her cheeks were stuffed with gobstoppers’—and so the ingenious title is explained. Our heroine, not satisfied with mere financial reward, seeks self-fulfillment and enhanced job satisfaction. In partnership with the beardy old man, aka Chester Fumblefore, she sets up a training school for aspiring phone sex workers called Snog Warts; so called because Harriet teaches her students to speak to every customer as though he were a handsome prince, even though most of them are more likely to be warty toads. Among her first pupils are Persephone Danger and Donna Sleazy, who become her best friends and training assistants. Between them, they set up a vast call center where their pupils can earn an honest living while they are training. Harriet invents a game called Quids In to increase productivity and raise morale in the workplace. The winner, who receives a cash bonus and a month’s supply of gobstoppers, is the worker who satisfies the most customers in one hour while cunningly introducing the words ‘brothel,’ ‘todger’ (twice), and ‘golden snatch’ into each phone sex liaison.”
Bomber laughed out loud.
“It’s not funny, Bomber!” exploded Eunice. “It’s an absolute bloody disgrace. How can anybody give such utter drivel shelf room? Millions of people are paying hard-earned money for this excrement! It’s not even well-written excrement. It’s execrable excrement.
“And if it’s not enough that Portia’s being interviewed on every poxy chat show that’s aired, there’s a horribly tenacious rumor doing the rounds about her being invited to speak at Hay this year.”
Bomber clapped his hands in glee.
“Now that I should gladly pay good money to see.”
Eunice shot him a warning look and he shrugged his shoulders in reply.